No, The Multiverse Theory Does NOT Explain Intelligent Design

To counter the otherwise overwhelmingly convincing evidence for Intelligent Design (ID) of our universe, critics often claim that there are actually millions of universes and it just happens that one of them has all of those characteristics cited by ID advocates as evidence for the guiding hand of a designer.

J. Warner Wallace (Screenshot from Youtube).

Cold-Case Christianity’s J. Warner Wallace tackles the multiverse theory in the following video produced as part of his lecture series based on his book, God’s Crime Scene.

The crime scene refers to Wallace’s prior career as a cold-case detective who was so good at unwinding decades old homicides that he made multiple appearances on NBC’s “Dateline” show.

Yes, There Are Atheists Grateful For Christianity. Meet Some Of Them Here

Why would an atheist be grateful for Christianity? Well, remember that charming fellow in the movie “Gladiator,” the illegitimate Emperor Commodus?

Kurt Mahlburg of the Cross + Culture blog and the Canberra Declaration team in Australia observes:

“Take, for example, the emperor Commodus (AD 161-192). For a gladiatorial contest, Commodus once had all those with disabilities rounded up from the streets of Rome and tied together in the shape of a human. Entering the Colosseum, Commodus clubbed them to death before cheering crowds, proudly announcing that he had ‘slain a giant.'”

Mahlburg draws that example from Tom Holland, author of “Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind.” As it happens, Holland is an authority on ancient history and is an atheist.

But Holland is an atheist who understands that “in my morals and ethics, I have learned to accept that I am not Greek or Roman at all, but thoroughly and proudly Christian.”

Mahlburg smartly introduces readers to other atheists who, like Holland, acknowledge that Western civilization is at its healthiest roots, thoroughly Christian.

Go here for the full tour, especially if you are an atheist or agnostic, or are one of the many in this country who was taught on campus that Western civilization is oppressive, racist, evil, etc. etc.

If Jesus Didn’t Die On The Cross, There Was No Resurrection, Either

There are those who insist Jesus didn’t really die on the cross. If that’s true, then everything else claimed about the life and significance of His life is cast into doubt.

But is it the most reasonable conclusion that Jesus was not dead when His body was taken down from the cross, based upon the available evidence? Former NBC “Dateline” cold-case expert J. Warner Wallace doesn’t think so and he makes a compelling case in the following video.

Before you click on the video, though, ask yourself if you have ever touched a dead body. Odds are most of you reading this will say no. It’s not the common experience for regular folks. But it’s a VIP question, as Wallace explains:

HARD FACTS: There’s More Than One Way To ‘Trust The Science’

If you work in any position on Capitol Hill, here’s a must-read analysis by True Horizon’s Bob Perry of what is likely the most frequently repeated truism of the coronavirus pandemic. Click on the last line below to read the rest of Perry’s post:

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

“I have made the case before that scientism is a dangerous belief system. And the COVID-19 Pandemic has done nothing but prove the point. In their response to the virus, many in power exhort us to ‘trust the science.’

“Listen to the doctors. Their wisdom should guide the trajectory of our collective futures. But accepting that view greatly depends on your understanding of what science is … and whose science you’re trusting.

“The truth is that science never provides answers to anything. Scientists do.”

Check Out These Three Undisputed Facts About Jesus And One Quite Irresistible Conclusion

Every now and again, I receive an email that stands out among the hundreds of such messages that hit my inbox just about every day. One such missive came today that I would like to share with you.

The email came from Stand to Reason’s Greg Koukl. Along with Josh and Sean McDowell, Frank Turek, J. Warner Wallace, Gary Habermas, Hugh Ross, and Ravi Zacharias, Koukl has in recent years labored mightily and successfully to put Christian apologetics in a prominent place in America’s public forums, secular and spiritual.

The heart of this particular message was the following three facts that are essentially settled as beyond dispute among Christianity’s defenders and its skeptics: Continue reading “Check Out These Three Undisputed Facts About Jesus And One Quite Irresistible Conclusion”

HARD FACTS: Is The Claim Jesus Rose From The Dead Just Another Fairy Tale Like The Easter Bunny?

The grave is empty. How do you explain it? (Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash)

It’s Easter week, the most important seven days on the calendar for the billions of people around this Earth who call themselves Christians. That’s because the single most important event in history happened during this period.

That event is the central claim underlying their faith — that Jesus was crucified dead and buried on Friday, then rose again on Sunday and appeared to hundreds of people in the following days before ascending back to Heaven from whence He came. He will return some day and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord and Savior.

But how can someone who is genuinely open to hearing all of the evidence for and against this central claim of Christianity know what to accept as logical and true and what to reject as baseless claims? Every day this week on HillFaith we will consider this question from a variety of angles, beginning today with the following video produced by the Impact360 Institute:

HARD FACTS: Why Is The Earth’s Gravity Exactly Right To Maintain Our Livable Atmosphere?

Is this by chance or by design?

“The surface gravity of Earth is critical to its ability to retain an atmosphere friendly to life. If Earth’s gravity were stronger, our atmosphere would contain too much methane and ammonia. If our planet’s gravity were weaker, Earth wouldn’t be able to retain water.

“As it is, Earth’s atmosphere has a finely calibrated ratio of oxygen to nitrogen — just enough carbon dioxide and adequate water vapor levels to promote advanced life, allow photosynthesis (without an excessive greenhouse effect) and provide sufficient rainfall.” — God’s Crime Scene, J. Warner Wallace.

HARD FACTS: Maybe Jesus Didn’t Really Die On The Cross, He Just Revived After They Buried Him?

Among the most common objections to Christianity is the rejection of the disciples’ claim that they saw and talked to the resurrected Jesus three days after his crucifixion on the cross and burial in a grave carved out of stone. He didn’t actually die on the cross, the critics claim.

This objection is one of the several ways, for example, that Islam rejects the resurrected Jesus Christ as proof of His claim to be both God and man. Similarly, atheists came up with the claim that Jesus could not have been resurrected from the dead because He didn’t die on the cross. He was buried, then revived in the cool grave, escaped and walked all the way to India or maybe Japan where he married, had kids, and died. (No, I’m not making this up, you can Google it!)

Palm Sunday is right around the corner, so odds are good this objection will be heard in coming days in the mainstream media, in online college classes and in the popular culture. But NBC “Dateline” Cold-Case Detective J. Warner Wallace explains in the following video why people who claim Jesus didn’t die on the cross have no idea what they are talking about:

Here Are 10 More Of The Most Amazing Facts About Jesus They Didn’t Tell You In School

HARD FACTS: Here Are 10 Of The Most Amazing Things About Jesus They Didn’t Tell You In School

Billions of people down through history have called upon the name of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, memorized His words and followed His teachings even though they never met Him in person.

“More Than A Carpenter,” by Josh and Sean McDowell.

Do you have any idea how amazing it is that we in the third decade of the 21st century even know His name, much less any of the unbelievable things He said about Himself and about us?

Think about these facts about Jesus:

- He came from an obscure village, Nazareth, in a remote region, Galilee, of a backwater nation, Israel, that had been conquered and re-conquered repeatedly by the major powers surrounding it throughout ancient history, culminating in His lifetime with the imperial domination by Rome.

Continue reading “HARD FACTS: Here Are 10 Of The Most Amazing Things About Jesus They Didn’t Tell You In School”

How To Sort Out The Facts From Falsehoods About The Resurrection Of Jesus

We human beings are such curious beings. Consider for example how we often deal with subjects we’d rather, for whatever reason, avoid, delay or simply ignore. It’s called rationalization.

As we saw in Wednesday’s post, the vast majority of historians of the ancient world agree Jesus Christ was crucified, that his grave was found empty three days later and his disciples maintained to their deaths that they had seen and talked with the resurrected Jesus.

If those three facts are true, it means all of us then must decide what we’ll do with the claim of Jesus to be God and the only way any of us can be accepted into Heaven. The following video from reasaonblefaith.org addresses the four most common rationalizations for avoiding those three facts and the implications for each of us:

DID YOU MISS PART ONE YESTERDAY?

Sort Out The Three Most Important Facts About Jesus’ Claim To Be God

How To Sort Out The Three Most Important Facts About Jesus’ Claim To Be Lord And Savior

Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me.” (John 14:6) Think about that – He said He alone holds your ultimate destiny and mine in His hands. As C.S. Lewis famously observed:

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.”

But how do you know which is right, that Jesus was exactly who and what He claimed to be or He was a nutcase, a liar and a deceiver? The following video, the first of a two-part series produced by reasonablefaith.org, examines the three most basic facts that point us in the right direction:

DON’T MISS PART TWO TOMORROW!

Did Jesus Rise From The Dead? The Explanation

Ota Benga And The Untold History Of Darwinism, Eugenics And The Roots Of Scientific Racism

You’ve almost certainly never heard of Ota Benga, a diminutive young man taken from the Belgian Congo early in the first decade of the last century, and literally put on display in New York City in a cage with a monkey.

There is much discussion in America’s public forums about the country’s historic racism, with the New York Times’ “1619 Project” being among the most notable. But the Times defended putting Ota Benga on display in a cage, as did many of the most respected scientists of the day.

This award-winning documentary produced by Discovery Science is 55 minutes in length, much longer than the typical video I post here on HillFaith. But it will mesmerize and horrify you, both for the evil it documents and the realization that those who promote the narrative underlying “1619” leave out of their account the most important truths.

Actor, Skeptic John Rhys-Davies: ‘We Owe Christianity The Greatest Debt Of Thanks That A Generation Could Have’

If you’ve seen the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy or the “Indiana Jones” series, you saw Hollywood actor John Rhys-Davies. He’s also starring in the forthcoming “I Am Patrick” about the Irish saint.

Screen shot from “I Am Patrick” trailer on youtube.com.

Rhys-Davies is not a Christian, but he is not bashful about expressing his admiration of and appreciation for the role of Christianity in the development of individual civil liberties we take for granted:

“Everything that we value — everything that I valued when I was a student 50, 60 years ago, which I cannot any longer count on an audience accepting — really comes from Christianity,” Rhys-Davies recently told podcaster Lucas Miles.

“The idea of the right of free speech, the idea of the right to hold your own opinion really derives from the second century A.D., when Roman Christians were told they must practice the emperor’s religion and faith, and that quiet voice in them said, ‘No, actually, I serve a different God. And I have a divine right to do so,’” he told Miles. Continue reading “Actor, Skeptic John Rhys-Davies: ‘We Owe Christianity The Greatest Debt Of Thanks That A Generation Could Have’”

How Are Your Telomeres Today? Can Faith Actually Help You Live Longer, Healthier?

Unless you are deep into the study of cellular biology, odds are you have no idea that your body is so dependent on telomeres because they are essential to the quality and length of your life.

So what on earth is a telomere? TA Sciences begins by noting that they are “an essential part of human cells that affect how our cells age,” then continues by explaining:

“Telomeres are the caps at the end of each strand of DNA that protect our chromosomes, like the plastic tips at the end of shoelaces.Without the coating, shoelaces become frayed until they can no longer do their job, just as without telomeres, DNA strands become damaged and our cells can’t do their job.”

In other words, when your telomeres can’t do their job, your life is adversely affected, and ultimately ended prematurely. Continue reading “How Are Your Telomeres Today? Can Faith Actually Help You Live Longer, Healthier?”

How To Know That The Life And Miracles Of Jesus Aren’t Just A Legend

If you’ve ever been involved in a debate on campus or in a typical Washington discussion group about religion, odds are good you’ve heard somebody claim the following:

“You can’t trust the Bible because Jesus was a man who was a great teacher but still no more than a man, and besides, in the decades after his death, his followers invented Christianity by embellishing his words and actions to turn him into this mythical God-man figure.”

It may sound sophisticated and smart, but the reality, as NBC “Dateline” cold-case detective J. Warner Wallace explains in the following video, is the Gospels are solid and credible testimony that you could stake your life on in court: